I just finished this book, and I’d like to put it up for consideration in the next round of the Book Club.
Ian Cormack is an agent with Earth Central Security, the benevolent AI dictatorship that rules the human worlds. He’s gridlinked, with the 25th century’s equivalent of the Internet wirelessly streaming directly into his brain. Despite the massive advantages that this gives him Cormack’s superiors are concerned that he’s steadily losing his humanity, and order him to disconnect just at the same moment that he’s assigned to investigate a disaster that’s wiped out the colony of Samarkand. In the course of the story Cormack must discover what wiped out the colonists, recover his humanity and survive the vendetta of an enemy made along the way.
The book brims with action, sweet technology and memorable characters. I highly recommend it.